Good day,
Hope you're well. I am looking to build a charger for 6 cells, 18650 lithium ion with rated capacity of 3500 mAh. The cells charge using the CC-CV method, charge voltage is 4.20V and current at 1.65A for each cell. Currently, I have a USB-C circuit(source) that i will like to use to power the charging circuit and it can supply up to 100W at 20V.
I have done my research on how the cells are charged and it seems that I will need a charging IC and a BMS. However, I have more questions and i am hoping to get some clarification or guidance.
1. Should I tackle this with a dedicated IC that has the charger and BMS, or seperately? Do they come with cell protection and balancing?
2. It is my understanding that the cells balance themselves in parallel, but how are the charging and balancing IC's connected to the combination of the cells in series/parallel?
3. If I am using separate charging and Balancing IC's, will they interface with each other or just the cells?
4. Please kindly recommend TI product that has evaluation kit/application examples that I can reference to get more information and start design with.
All this is new to me so if I my questions are not clear enough, please let me know(I have to study more). Thank you so much for your time and help with this.
